A Nudge on Digital Privacy Law From E.U. Official

BRUSSELS — The top data protection official for the European Union called Tuesday for member governments to restore public trust in the Internet by pressing ahead with an overhaul of the bloc’s electronic privacy laws by the end of this year.

The official, Peter Hustinx, the European data protection supervisor, also called on President Obama to stick to his pledge to review American privacy rules in the wake of disclosures that have exposed the vast reach of government surveillance that has shaken trans-Atlantic relations.

Legislation to revamp European digital privacy law has been in the works since November 2010, when the European Union’s justice commissioner, Vivian Reding, first proposed updating rules set during the mid-1990s in the early part of the Internet era. She presented her version of the legislation in January 2012.

A separate bill, aimed at providing more equitable access for companies and consumers to the Internet — “net neutrality” — and making mobile phone roaming less costly to consumers is now before the European Parliament, which is to vote on that legislation Thursday.

But Ms. Reding’s digital privacy regulation is running on a separate track.

Last month the European Parliament gave preliminary approval to a strengthened version of Ms. Reding’s rules that would set higher fines and provide stronger bulwarks against demands by countries like the United States for access to data belonging to Europeans. But that version still needs to be reconciled with the views of the European Union’s 28 member governments.

As it stands, the proposed digital privacy law would establish fines that could run to billions of euros for giant American technology companies like Amazon and eBay if they failed to adhere to rules like limiting the sharing of personal data. Companies like Google and Facebook would also need to seek clearance from European officials before complying with United States court warrants seeking private data.

At a news conference Tuesday, Mr. Hustinx stressed the urgency of keeping the privacy legislation moving through the Council of the European Union in Brussels, the body in which national governments meet to adopt laws and coordinate policies.

“The problem is that the council is not ready yet,” Mr. Hustinx said.

Mr. Hustinx called on the bloc’s 28 member states to reach a deal with one another and with the Parliament by the end of the year, because “the 21st century requires stronger rights, stronger responsibilities, more consistency across Europe.”

Mr. Hustinx said European Union governments were ready to approve most of the current version of the privacy legislation, including a “right to erasure” that would enable users to demand that data be scrubbed from websites.

But he suggested that governments could continue to hold up approval because of other elements, including difficulties reaching agreement on how to enforce uniform rules across the bloc and whether to apply the rules to the way civil servants in member countries handle data.

Germany has been particularly forceful in seeking a broad carve-out for the public sector, because of a deep reluctance to modify its own existing privacy rules, which it regards as preferable. Britain, too, has reservations about how the law could create more red tape for businesses in an area of the economy with potential for growth.

Mr. Hustinx also challenged the United States government to do more in updating its own rules. “There are some interesting movements in Washington, but we’d like to see much more,” he said. “If trust should be rebuilt, then it certainly takes a number of actions at the other side as well.”

Mr. Hustinx suggested that European governments could be given added reassurance they would be in sync with the American approach to data privacy, if a group led by John Podesta, a special adviser to Mr. Obama, issues its report on data privacy this spring as expected.

That study by Mr. Podesta, announced in January, is expected to review how businesses collect private data. But it might also suggest specific legislative proposals to give consumers more control of that information.

“To avoid a limping horse in the trans-Atlantic space, we need to have sufficient consistency,” Mr. Hustinx said.

A version of this article appears in print on of the National edition with the headline: E.U. Needs to Move on Electronic Privacy Law, Data Protection Chief Says. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe